Pilgrimage
My father goes to Arlington National Cemetery at least once a year to visit my mother’s grave. It is almost a three-hour drive one way with stops for coffee and bio-breaks. I try to stop by on my way home from a trip into DC whenever possible. At least, that was the case before COVID-19.
It is both a sad and yet comfortable place for me. I never feel as though I am just visiting Mom. Actually, I’m not. My uncle and my aunt rest some rows away in the same section as Mom. Others I knew—the grandfathers, fathers, sons, and brothers of people I grew up with—are there, too. Though I may not be able to visit all their graves, I salute them silently.
Dad will be buried there as well. He reminds me every time we go, describing the service – preparing me, though I am more than aware of what will take place. Maybe he’s preparing himself. Getting comfortable with the inevitability of his next permanent change of station. But, in no small part, he seems also to be looking forward to reuniting with Mom. They shared one long tour of duty those two.
“Someone left a rock on your Mom’s headstone,” he told me the last morning he, my brother, and sister-in-law drove to Arlington.
“I always do,” I tell him, “but I can’t imagine it’s still there. I wonder who?”
He shrugs.
I tell my daughter about the rock a little later in the morning.
“I wonder who left it,” she says.
It could be mine, I tell her, but I can’t imagine that it would still be there since my last visit. Friends of mine tell me that they have visited, but do not mention leaving things. Other friends lay wreaths each winter. Them? Still, that was almost a year ago. Sometimes I have left a penny because I did not bring a rock.
She goes on to tell me that they remove the flowers once they die, but not stones or coins. She goes on to explain that a penny means you have visited, a nickel means you were in boot camp together, a dime means you served together, and a quarter means you were present when she died. Eventually, the coins are collected, too, and applied to the maintenance of the burial ground.
I am safe bringing any one of those denominations the next time I visit.
